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The Importance of Being Parents
Liam Shields
<liam.shields@manchester.ac.uk>
Introduction
In many contemporary societies biological parents are given extensive legal rights over their
children. Such rights include rights to decide where the child lives, what the child eats, and with
whom the child associates. Parents may also enroll their children in religious organizations and
determine to some extent how the child is schooled. So long as they provide a minimally decent
upbringing there is little interference with these decisions by present day states.
There are alternatives to this arrangement. Parents could be given more or less
extensive rights and those rights could be allocated in accordance with criteria other than
biological relation and minimal competence. There may be good reasons to implement,
perhaps radical, alternatives to the status quo if they better promote the interests of children
or parents, or the interests of society as a whole. To determine whether we ought to
implement these alternatives, and which ones, we need an account of the interests that are
relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing arrangements.
Any plausible view of the interests relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing
arrangements will admit that the most basic interests of children in avoiding neglect and abuse
are the most important factors, but this leaves room for other interests to play some role. Some
people believe that the interests of parents will be among them. For many adults having
children and founding a family are central aspects of their plan of life and child-rearing is an
activity that, if done well, can contribute to their flourishing. The inclusion of parental interests
within an account of the interests relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing will change the
character of our evaluations, especially where deciding in the very best interests of children
would impose serious costs on parents. This includes our evaluations of post-separation
custodial arrangements, institutional child-rearing settings, including orphanages and care
homes, and the scheme of parents’ legal duties, which can be more or less demanding. As such,
much turns on inclusion or exclusion of a parental interest. My aim in this paper is to examine
the prospects for including a parental interest.
In light of a rejection of property-based accounts of child-rearing rights contemporary
accounts emphasize the interests of those involved in child-rearing.1 The two most influential

I want to thank audiences at the Stanford Center for Ethics in Society Postdoc Workshop and at the Ethics of
Child-Rearing workshop I held at the Center in April 2014. I am very grateful to Sarah Hannan, Colin MacLeod, Rob
Reich and Julie Rose for helpful discussion the ideas in this paper and Luara Ferracioli for written comments on an
earlier draft. Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Stephanie Collins for written comments and some
suggestions that altered the direction and structure of the paper in ways that, I think, greatly improved it.
1
The most well-known account of children as the property of their parents comes from Aristotle in ed. J. Barnes
“Nicomachean Ethics”, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton University Press, (1984): 5. 6. 1134b. For
discussion and rejection of property-based views, among others, see Archard, David. "What's blood got to do with
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accounts of the interests relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing arrangements are
distinguished by their stance on the inclusion of a parental interest. The child-centered account
holds that only the interests of children are relevant to the evaluation of child-rearing
arrangements, denying the inclusion of parents’ interests. This view gains intuitive support from
the fact that children are especially vulnerable, have no exit from the relationship and cannot
give consent.2 The dual-interest account, by contrast, holds that, in addition to the interests of
the child, the interests of parents are relevant. Proponents of dual-interest accounts cite as the
main advantage of their view that it can explain three considered convictions about childrearing arrangements that the child-centered account cannot.
The first conviction is that an exclusive focus on the interests of children would leave us
unable to explain why we should not re-shuffle children immediately following birth, so that
they have different parents from those who created or gave birth to them. I call this The ReShuffling Worry. Proponents of the dual-interest view claim that this conviction could be
explained by appeal to the interests of parents in rearing their biological child.
The second conviction is that an exclusive focus on the interests of children would leave
us unable to explain why it is wrong to remove children from their current parents who are
doing a decent job and put them in the care of better parents. Indeed, a child-centered view
would seem to support this move. I call this the Better Parents Worry.3 Proponents of the dualinterest view claim that this could be explained by appeal to the interests of current parents.
The third conviction is that an exclusive focus on the interests of children would leave us
unable to explain why it is wrong to have all children reared in well-run institutions rather than
by minimally decent parents, even if institutional child-rearing would provide minimally decent
care for children and would improve equality in various ways. I call this the No-Parents Worry.
it? The significance of natural parenthood." Res Publica 1.1 (1995): 91-106. Austin, Michael W. "The failure of
biological accounts of parenthood." The Journal of Value Inquiry 38.4 (2004): 499-510.
2
These factors are emphasized in Peter Vallentyne, “The Rights and Duties of Childrearing”, William and Mary Bill
of Rights Journal, 11 (2003), 991-1009: 998; James G. Dwyer, The Relationship Rights of Children. Cambridge
University Press, 2011. Child-centered views are discussed in Arneson, R. ‘Democracy is not intrinsically Just’, in
Dowding, K. Goodin, R. and Pateman, C. 2000. Justice and Democracy: Essays for Brian Barry, Cambridge University
Press: 46; Brighouse, H. 1998. “Civic Education and Liberal Legitimacy” Ethics 108: 737; Sarah Hannan and Richard
Vernon, "Parental Rights: A role-based approach." Theory and Research in Education 6.2 (2008): 173-189. For a
general theory of how vulnerability generates responsibilities, see Goodin, Robert E. Protecting the vulnerable: a
re-analysis of our social responsibilities. University of Chicago Press, 1985.
3
I believe that Anca Gheaus’ discussion of what she terms “baby redistribution” covers both reshuffle and better
parents worries. See Gheaus, Anca. "The Right to Parent One's Biological Baby." Journal of Political Philosophy 20.4
(2012): 432-455: 436 and 440. Gheaus considers a baby-allocating lottery, for instance. Also, some of the remarks
make by Brighouse and Swift also cover both. See, for example Brighouse and Swift, “Parents Rights and the Value
of the Family”, 86. “The child-centered and public goods accounts of the status of parents both leave open the
possibility that it could be legitimate to redistribute children en masse… If parents’ interests play no justificatory
role, what would there be to impugn a well-intentioned and efficient government agency that distributed the
children, who under a laissez faire system would be reasonably well raised, to adults who would be better parents,
thus leaving some adequately good parents childless?”
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Proponents of the dual-interest view claim that this could be explained by appeal to the
interests of would-be parents.4
In each case, the child-centered account cannot explain the conviction, but it seems that
a dual-interest account could do so by appeal to parental interest(s). Those moved by these
convictions may therefore be inclined to support a dual-interest account rather than a childcentered account of justice in child-rearing. But this is too quick.
Even granting that each of these convictions has some intuitive purchase on us and
granting that the child-centered view cannot capture them, it remains for the proponent of the
dual-interest view to show that some plausible characterization of the parental interest can
explain these convictions. I will argue that the most well-known characterizations cannot
explain these convictions and that reflection on the kinds of interests that could reveals a
serious tension in the motivation for the dual-interest accounts, because some worries can be
explained only at the expense of others. This suggests that those working on issues around
justice and child-rearing, especially dual-interest theorist, must look elsewhere for a complete
explanation of the worries or else accept some of the worries.
The structure of the paper is as follows. In Section One, I discuss two characterizations
of a parental interest that have been thought capable of explaining some of the worries. First, I
examine a prominent view in the literature about the importance of being parents. On this view
parenting can make a unique contribution to the flourishing of those who do take part in it and
this explains why we should be worried in each case. I argue that this characterization can only
hope to explain the No-Parents Worry. Second, I engage with one way of explaining why the
interest in continuing to be a parent is distinct from, and perhaps weightier than, the interest in
becoming a parent. This distinction is especially important for explaining The Better Parents and
Reshuffle Worries. I argue that these characterizations cannot help explain the worries either.
4
For those who have discussed the clash between the value of the family and equality of opportunity see, Francis
Shrag who notes observes that Rawls’ theory of justice, in giving priority to equality of opportunity and the
development of a sense of justice gives no reason for preferring the family to the kibbutz as the primary mode of
child-rearing in his "Justice and the Family." Inquiry 19.1-4 (1976): 193-208: 196. Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift,
“Parents’ Rights and the Value of the Family”, 97, “even if a state successfully used orphanages to foster diversity
and fulfil children’s needs excellently, there would be a serious loss of value and flourishing. Many adults would be
unable to engage in activities and relationships that make an ineliminable and great contribution to their ability to
flourish. They could not get access to the full package of these activities and relationship by becoming “teachers”
at the orphanages, because, in the role of teacher they could not enjoy the relevant kinds of intimacy with, or
exercise the relevant kind of legitimate partiality with respect to, a small number of particular children.”; Brighouse
and Swift, “Legitimate Parental Partiality”, 50. “We share the common view that familial relationships are valuable
enough to make society A, in which people enjoy Rawlsian fair equality of opportunity but lack familial
relationships, worse than society B, where there is a good deal of inequality of opportunity but plentiful family life.
This means that parents should be permitted to engage in forms of partiality necessary for the realization of the
most important familial relationship goods, and they would be justified in doing so, even where that would disrupt
that version of equality of opportunity.” Also see Gheaus, Anca. "The Right to Parent One's Biological
Baby*." Journal of Political Philosophy 20.4 (2012): 432-455; Munoz-Darde, Veronique. "Is the family to be
abolished then?." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Aristotelian Society, 1999.
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In Section Two, I consider the general features of a parental interest one must defend in order
to explain each of the three worries. I then argue that the features required to explain the NoParents Worry give rise to a norm of equality of opportunity to parent for interested and able
adults. This norm blocks any explanation of the Reshuffling and Better Parents Worries because
they require reference to biology or current parents, factors that render opportunity to parent
unequal. This promises to deprive dual-interest accounts of a large part of their initial
motivation: explaining all three convictions. I conclude, in Section Three by surveying the
avenues that remain available to those who remain motivated by the worries.
1. The Interests of Parents
The best developed account of the adult interest in rearing children can be found in the work of
Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift.5 Brighouse and Swift are animated by the worrying
implications of the child-centered view set out above and they claim that the parenting interest
can explain the Better Parents and No-Parents Worries.
In characterizing the interest they claim that the parent-child relationship is an intimate
relationship that makes a unique contribution to the flourishing of parents. They tell us that the
parent-child relationship is unique in virtue of the following four features, which may singly be
possessed by other relationships but are collectively unavailable elsewhere.
1)
2)
3)
4)
parties have unequal standing,
one party lacks the ability to exit,
the relationship elicits spontaneous and unconditional responses,
one party has a fiduciary role.6
They go on to say that,
“no other relationship contains all of these features and that these features contribute
to well-being in a quite distinctive way.
The intimacy one can have with one’s children is quite different from the
intimacy one can have with other adults. It makes a contribution to one’s flourishing of a
different kind and, for many, is not substitutable by relationships of other kinds.”7
5
Most recently in their book Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, Family Values, Princeton University Press, 2014, and
previously in several highly influential papers, most notably, Brighouse, Harry, and Adam Swift. "Parents’ Rights
and the Value of the Family*." Ethics 117.1 (2006): 80-108; Brighouse, Harry, and Adam Swift. "Legitimate parental
partiality." Philosophy & Public Affairs 37.1 (2009): 43-80.
6
I will set aside the issue of whether these four features are, at least collectively, unique to parenting and I will set
aside the issue of whether one might experience relationships with each of these four features in more than one
relationship.
7
Brighouse and Swift, “Parents’ Rights and the Value of the Family”, p. 96. Weinstock and De Wispealere also
accept this view and draw out its implications for parental licencing in De Wispelaere, Jurgen, and Daniel
Weinstock. "Licensing Parents to Protect Our Children?." Ethics and Social Welfare 6.2 (2012): 195-205.
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The uniqueness of the relationship is important because it sets parenting apart in ways
that are necessary to explain the convictions. This uniqueness sets parenting apart from other
sorts of activity that contribute to well-being that might be perfect substitutes and that we
might otherwise be justified in trading-off for improvements in other areas, including child
welfare. We could understand this willingness to trade-off as operating on a sliding scale, with
uniqueness at this extreme end of the scale. For instance, if there were an abundance of
perfect substitutes for parenting then it would seem strange to think that would-be parents had
a serious complaint about the No-Parents or Better Parents Worries. If there were only a few
perfect substitutes or a few adequate substitutes we might feel less reluctant to trade-off. If
sound, this characterization of the interest has some potential to explain the worries.
To see whether this interest can explain the worries we must first ask whether the
interest is of the right sort to explain the worries. To do so, the interest must set up an
asymmetry between the arrangements that are worrying and the arrangements that are not so
worrying, with the parental interest explaining why the latter should be favored over the
former. Second, we should examine the arguments for thinking parents have this interest and
for thinking this interest has sufficient weight to counter-veil the other interests and therefore
explain the convictions. I’ll consider each worry in turn, starting with the Reshuffle Worry. We
should note first of all that Brighouse and Swift do not claim to be offering an explanation of
why birth parents have rights to their children. As such, they do not claim to be offering an
explanation of the Reshuffle Worry. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to briefly explain why it
cannot.
The interest defended by Brighouse and Swift is an interest any prospective parent has
in having a relationship of a particular kind with a child. As such, there is nothing to suggest that
biological or birth parents have this interest any more with respect to their child than with
another child. The interest as specified gives us no reason to think that biological or birth
parents could only enjoy intimacy with that particular child, nor is there any reason to think
that non-birth or non-biological parents could not similarly enjoy intimacy with children who
are not biologically related to them. To support this, consider adoptive parents who seem
capable of enjoying these goods to the same degree as birth parents. They can cultivate
intimacy and respond well to the distinctive challenges of parenting. All four of the features
marked above obtain in adoptive parent-child relations, just as in birth/biological-parent
birth/biological-child relationships. Brighouse and Swift do claim to provide an interest that can
explain both The Better Parents and No-Parents Worries, so we may be more optimistic about
its ability to those worries.
However, the interest cannot explain The Better Parents Worry because the interest in
the contribution to flourishing doesn’t explain why we should not redistribute from current
parents to the best parents. The interest in being in this valuable relationship is not only
possessed by parents currently standing in those relationships but also by those who are not
currently standing in those relationships, but who nevertheless could and would make good
and even better, parents. A parental interest that could explain the Better Parents Worry,
would not only have to be one that current, but not prospective parents have, but also one that
were weighty enough to outweigh additional benefits to the child. The Brighouse and Swift
account doesn’t show either of these things except in cases where it is impossible for any other
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prospective parents to derive these benefits from the relationship but explanation of the Better
Parents Worry should apply to more cases than this to alleviate the worry. The interest in being
in a certain relationship with a child can be possessed by prospective parents. This is what
explains why adults who have not yet become parents can have an interest in being in that
relationship before they are already in it. So, the interest as specified cannot explain the Better
Parents Worry.
This interest, however, is of the right sort to explain the No-Parents Worry, because the
parental interest in meeting the challenges associated with child-rearing, as well as cultivating
the intimacy of the relationship, is not had by anyone under a regime of exclusive institutional
child-rearing. Institutional models of child-rearing lack the kind of intimacy that is prized by
Brighouse and Swift. As such, the interest could support parental child-rearing models over
institutional models if it could be shown to be more important than the putatively distinctive
benefits of institutional models of child-rearing. I’ll now move on to examine another interest
that may explain the remaining two worries.
For adults who have the ambition of becoming parents, being unable to have children is
a source of great frustration and unhappiness. However, breaking this relationship once
established has, perhaps, even more serious costs for adults with the ambition of raising a
family. This second cost is central to explaining The Reshuffle Worry and The Better Parents
Worry. Each worry proceeds from the thought that biological or current parents have a
stronger claim than prospective parents, even when those prospective parents would do a
better job in promoting the child’s justice-salient interests. Thus, the interest in retaining
custody of one’s children, and not merely in the value or importance of the activity of
parenting, may be a more promising route to resisting the Better Parents and Reshuffle Worries
and we may think it can suitably supplement Brighouse and Swift’s account to provide a dualinterest account that can explain all three convictions.
First, however, we should note that it was Smokey Robinson (and the Miracles) who
sang “A taste of honey is worse than none at all” when explaining that breaking a relationship
can be worse than never having had that relationship in the first place. We can call this the
Smokey Robinson Objection to the completeness of the Brighouse-Swift account.8
A promising explanation of the importance of retaining custody of one’s own baby is
given by Anca Gheaus in her paper “The Right to Keep One’s Biological Baby.”9 To explain why
one can keep one’s biological baby Gheaus appeals to the relationship that can form, as well as
the costs that are borne, during gestation and in preparation for the baby’s arrival. Given that
the intimacy and relationship, and the expensive preparation, is for this particular baby, and not
for any baby, it seems to asymmetrically situate birth parents and current parents, who
currently invest in and have a relationship with, prospective better parents, who do not.
Current and biological parents can thus object to the two worries by saying “but I bore certain
costs for that child”. The relationship formation and the costs incurred are taken to explain why
a parent has a right to rear her biological baby. Below I argue that the interest doesn’t set up
8
Brighouse and Swift do show an awareness of this problem and offer some remarks intended to explain, in
agreement with Smokey Robinson, that it is worse to severe a relationship than to have never had it. See Family
Values: 95-6.
9
Gheaus, “The Right to Keep One’s Biological Baby”, Journal of Political Philosophy, 20 (4) 432-455.
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the correct type of asymmetry unless a particularly strong version of the gestation claim is held
and this seems to have some highly implausible implications.
Gheaus states that during gestation and even prior, expectant parents form a
“poignantly embodied, but also emotional and intimate relationship with their fetus”10 and that
“pregnancy can, and is likely to, lead to bonding; the likelihood is very significant, since
bonding can happen even if the pregnant woman knows she will not be permitted to
keep the baby – as we know from cases of surrogate mothers who have developed a
strong attachment to their unborn, and then newborn baby. Bonding during pregnancy
provides a very solid reason for thinking that redistributing babies would likely destroy
already existing intimate relationships between newborns and their bearing parents.” 11
If true, the fact that an intrinsically valuable relationship would be destroyed may
provide us with some reason to favor those in the relationship over those prospective parents
who would receive the child in Reshuffling and Better Parents Worries, at least in the majority
of cases where the bond is formed. The fact that it would break this bond is at least some
reason against it. Thus, Gheaus claims,
“the fact that the relationship with one’s future child starts during pregnancy provides
the missing step in the justification of a fundamental parental right to keep and raise
one’s birth baby and the answer to the question of how to determine fundamental
moral right to parent particular babies.”12
Although it looks initially promising, the argument doesn’t show that birth parents are
asymmetrically situated in virtue of having this sort of relationship. Moreover, since surrogates
apparently form this relationship knowing that they won’t keep the child, it is possible for other
adults to form this sort of relationship knowing that they have little chance of ever being the
child’s parents. Thus, some kind of reasonable expectation is not a condition on the formation
of this bond, which is supposed to explain why we shouldn’t re-allocate the right to rear that
child. A reasonable expectation is usually required to convert hard work or costs born into
entitlement to the thing produced. This is why building contractors do not possesses rights to
retain the home, and why fund-raisers don’t get entitlements over the funds they generate,
despite the, sometimes very large, costs they incur.13
Moreover, it is, in principle, possible for other people to form this sort of relationship to
the child by simply imagining what it would be like to be with the child without the embodied
10
IBID: 446.
IBID 450.
12
IBID: 450
13
Of course, in some cases the decision to become pregnant, and continue to be, is not voluntary in the way that
agreeing to work for a charity and not be entitled to the funds is. In many circumstances seeking abortion is not an
option that is made against a background of reasonable alternatives. In these cases, therefore, there is an
disanalogy.
11
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connection.14 This is the case for fathers and extended family as well as for parents who employ
the services of a surrogate to gestate their child. Other factors than the embodied nature of the
relationship may be more relevant to ground the existence of a valuable human relationship in
this case. It seems plausible to think that, as with other valuable human to human relationships,
they must proceed from minimal accurate knowledge of the other participant.15 One does not
have a valuable relationship with a conman, for instance, or an imaginary friend. So some
accurate information is required.
Initially we might think that there is very little that can be known about the child prior to
birth and even in the first weeks and months, but even when accurate information is available it
is not uniquely known by the gestating mother or expecting biological parents. The
dissemination of accurate and reliable information about pregnant celebrities challenges their
special position. We might consider the Duchess of Cambridge’s first pregnancy. It is possible
that many people around the world felt strongly invested in that pregnancy and eagerly waited
for news of the outcomes of scans and check-ups, were worried by reports of the Duchess’
sickness during pregnancy and were relieved and joyous on the announcement that a healthy
baby boy, George, has been born. Indeed, physicians involved would be far more well-informed
than the mother about the progress of the baby. It seems that other people had a similar claim
because they too were in this relationship. Thus, the asymmetry required for explaining the
Better-Parents or Reshuffle Worry cannot be established. Birth or current parents are not
unique in being capable of forming a bond with the unborn child.
Furthermore, it is possible in the Reshuffle and Better Parents Worries for a less
questionable valuable relationship to be formed with the new parents, at a later date. One’s
capacity to form valuable relationships with children isn’t restricted to biological or current
parents. So it isn’t clear why breaking this gestational bond would override the prospective
bond and additional benefits, in terms of the child’s welfare or equality of opportunity among
children in each of the worries. As such, this relationship seems incapable of explaining the
Reshuffle or Better Parents Worries, even if we do think that gestating mothers form a valuable
bond with their unborn child.
A second rationale offered by Gheaus for thinking that birth parents and currently
decent parents have a special claim to retain custody come from gestation and the emotional
and other costs that are born for that child.16 For sure, parents often invest a lot emotionally
and financially into their children. This certainly seems to distinguish current parents from
prospective parents. It also seems to distinguish birth parents from other prospective parents
who also form a bond with the idea of a new baby. This is because it can appeal to the
embodied nature of some of the costs of bearing children. However, there are good reasons to
doubt whether this reason can provide us with intuitively acceptable results when it is
generalized.
14
Note that Gheaus claims the relation may occur before gestation.
If the bond were merely a valuable attachment, rather than human to human relationship we might thing it less
valuable or at least less problematic to redistribute the good.
16
The parental rights and obligations following from gestation and nursing are discussed, respectively, in A.
Gheaus, “The Right to Parent One’s Biological Baby” and N. Wieland, “Parental Obligation”, Utilitas, 23 (2011), 24967.
15
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We can imagine cases where strangers do invest a lot in particular children, say through
a scheme of paying expensive school or university fees or by philanthropic donations to set up a
series of maternity wards that are free at the point of use. Even if they too have an emotional
attachment through periodic meetings with parents to discuss their progress, it seems that
their disappointment in not continuing that relationship should not be taken more seriously
than that of their parents if they are denied access to the child. Investing in the child is not
usually thought to be of relevance to these decisions. We should not weigh the concerns of
generous donors or rich grandparents greater than those of frugal or poor grandparents on this
basis, but this is suggested by this strategy for explaining the Reshuffle and Better Parents
Worries.
In response one could claim that gestation is a special case of investment, involving a
distinctive sunk cost. In what ways might it be special and be able to explain the worries? The
cost would have to either have absolute weight or always have priority over equality of
opportunity and supra-threshold benefits to explain the worries, but these strong claims have
highly counter-intuitive implications.
The absolute weight attached to gestation and preparation is the most implausible
version of this argument since we can deny very bad birth parents custody of their children,
even if they incur huge costs in order to bare and rear them. As such, the fact that someone
gestated the child is never an absolute reason to allow her to retain custody but it may be a
weighty consideration, sufficient to outweigh the counter-veiling interests in each case.
However, giving the costs of gestation special, but defeasible, weight sufficient to override
equality of opportunity and improvements in the child’s welfare also has implausible
implications.17
One implication of attaching great weight to the costs of gestation is that we should
always make it easier to remove children from non-birth parents than birth-parents when both
are doing an equally good job and it would mean that we should make it easier to remove
children from fathers than mothers when both are doing an equally good job. It would also
seem to imply that only mothers have this sort of claim and so fathers would have no
independent rights to “keep their biological baby”.18 These implications seem to be sufficiently
troubling to doubt whether gestation is a special kind of cost such that it could explain the
17
A different, but related debate concerns the commodification of women’s reproductive labour and its
specialness. These arguments seek to establish the wrongness of buying and selling reproductive labour, either by
saying that it usually falls within an impermissible commodification of any type of labour or because it is special.
Even if women’s reproductive labour is special in ways that make it wrong to commodity it, it does not follow that
it is special in ways that make it wrong to deny the woman rights over the product of her labour, in this case the
child. The abuse and neglect cases are the clearer counter-example to this view. For discussion of normative issues
around the commodification of women’s labour and arguments for its specialness see Debra Satz who argues that
it is a concern with equality that explains when commodification of women’s labour is wrong. If she is right, then
this seems to support my claim about the primacy of equality of opportunity considerations.
18
Other interests may explain the father’s rights, but then it is not clear why there would be any need for gestation
in the first place if there were some other ground that can explain why one gets to retain one’s biological child.
Gestation is invoked to plug an important theoretical gap that cannot otherwise be plugged.
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worries by trumping improvements in terms of equality of opportunity and in terms of the
child’s supra-threshold welfare. This is not to say they have no weight at all.
An alternative weak proposal is available. Such a proposal would attach some weaker
defeasible weight to gestation such that it is one consideration to be weighed against others in
determining the custodial and other decisions. But this would not enable us to explain the
Better Parents or Reshuffle Worries where gains could be made with respect to other interests
that will some, perhaps often or even always, outweigh them. As such, the weaker proposal
doesn’t promise to explain these Worries generally speaking.
So, the idea of sunk costs and of breaking an existing and valuable relationship do not
seem to be capable of plausibly grounding a weighty interest capable of counter-veiling the
interests in equality and the child’s best interests. This leaves us with only some rationale for
the Smokey Robinson’s thought that “a taste of love is worse than none at all”. However, there
is a further problem for those who accept that successfully rearing a child through infancy to
the cusp of adulthood is a highly valuable activity, as Swift and Brighouse and many others do.
This further problem faces those who appeal to gestation or other biological factors as
explaining the Reshuffle and Better Parents Worries. Recall Alfred Lord Tennyson’s thought that
“it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all”. This puts us in mind of an
objection to the idea at the heart of the Smokey Robinson Objection. While Smokey Robinson
emphasizes the relative badness of the loss of a relationship, Tennyson emphasizes the relative
badness of never having had the relationship in the first place. When thinking about the
Reshuffling and the Better Parents Worries we should not only consider the costs to the
previous parents, which we have been focusing on so far, but also the possible benefits to the
prospective parents who receive an opportunity to parent and would not have had one in the
first place.19 If we are successful in explaining the worries then we are so at their cost and this
needs to be justified.
Choosing between Tennyson and Smokey Robinson is at the heart of explaining these
two worries. The gestational account privileges fertile parents over infertile parents, since
fertile parents are given greater opportunities to establish a relationship of the sort described
here and so there is an inequality of opportunity between infertile individuals, or couples who
are collectively infertile, such as homosexual couples, and fertile couples. These infertile
couples should be offered some justification, particularly if they would be better parents for the
children and if they would better promote equality. I will argue that there is a serious tension in
the motivation of dual-interest views to explain all three worries as the sort of interest that can
explain the No-Parents Worry suggests that Tennyson’s thought has priority, while the
explanations of the others requires that Smokey Robinson’s thought does. As such we have to
19
See Brighouse and Swift Family Values: 64-65, for some remarks intended to explain why it might be worse to
have the relationship severed. Note that these remarks do not amount to a robust defense that would be capable
of resisting the worries in many cases. It merely suggests that the additional badness of severing the relation, if it
can be defended, would have to be weighed against the other counter-veiling benefits to the child, including
equality of opportunity and further welfare or other benefits from moving to better parents. Such parents would
have to be sufficiently better than current parents and not mere better, in net terms, but the better parents worry
then still arises.
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choose between them, and, in so doing, deprive ourselves of explanation of at least one of the
worries.
2.0 The Incompatibility of the Worries
So far in this paper I have examined different ways of characterizing the importance of being
parents. I have argued that there are good reasons for doubting whether each of these
characterizations, singly and collectively, can explain all three of the worries that motivate the
dual-interest position. However, it is consistent with what I have argued so far that there is
some interest or set of interests that I have not considered that can satisfactorily explain all
three of the worries. I now want to show that the three worries cannot be explained consistent
with one another. This is because any interest that can explain the No-Parents Worry will give
rise to a norm of equal opportunity that will block explanation of the other two worries. To do
so, I begin by clarifying some necessary features of an interest that can explain the No-Parents
Worry. Then I show that these three features are sufficient to give rise to a norm of equality of
opportunity to parent in particular. Finally, I show how this norm is likely to block the
explanation of the Better Parents and Reshuffle Worries in virtue of the features required to
explain them. One either comes down on the side of Smokey Robinson, denying equality of
opportunity to prospective parents and relegating the interest they have in the goods of childrearing or one comes down on the side of Tennyson, denying birth parents the privilege of
retaining their own children when others would do a better job with respect to certain values
and endorsing the value of parenting and equality of opportunity to parent.
2.1 Explaining the No-Parents Worry
An interest in parenting that can explain the No-Parents Worry, which is that parents should be
reared in well-run institutions rather than in families, must meet the following three criteria.
Independent from Biology: the interest must be held by those able and willing to rear
children, regardless of fertility or biological relation or the status quo
Justice Salience: the interest must be relevant to the judgments of justice that concern
guidance and design of policy directed at child-rearing institutions
Irreducibility: the interest must not be reducible to a more general currency of justice,
such as welfare.
I’ll now explain why these criteria apply to any interest capable of explaining the No-Parents
Worry.
The well-being-based interest in parenting defended by Brighouse and Swift is one that
adults can have independent of their fertility. Many infertile adults will be at least minimally
competent parents and have the ambition of being a parent. Some of those adults will be
individually infertile, and others will find partners with whom they are collectively infertile.
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However, this feature extends beyond the interest defended by Brighouse and Swift. Any
interest in parenting itself, whether grounded in an ideal of creative self-extension, as MacLeod
argues, or in founding intimate personal relations of a general kind, as Clayton argues, both of
which may be grounded in our autonomy, rather than well-being, would also have to meet this
criterion to explain the No-Parents Worry.20 Just as one does not have a well-being interest only
in rearing one’s biological or current children, one does not have an autonomy-based interest
only in creative self-extension or generally forming intimate relations with one’s biological or
current friends and partners. Moreover, if we did only have an interest in parenting current or
current biological children then this would be unable to explain why we should object to
institutional child-rearing arrangements that never allowed such relations. Consider that, if
adults who did not currently have children lacked an interest in having them in the future then
there would be nothing wrong with a system of child-rearing where parents were never
allowed to rear children.21 As such, in order to explain the No Parents Worry one needs to focus
on the interests had by prospective and not only current or even biological parents.
To inform any evaluation of the design of institutions that affect child-rearing the
interesting in parenting must satisfy the second criterion and be justice-salient. The appropriate
contrast is with an interest, such as an expensive taste, that is not justice salient and as such, it
doesn’t matter, fundamentally, whether people have equal opportunities to scuba-dive or drink
pre-phylloxera claret. Therefore, all defensible characterizations of parents’ interests that are
relevant to these evaluations are, by definition, justice-salient.
Furthermore, if we are to explain the No-Parents Worry the particular interests of
parents must also satisfy the third criterion and not be reducible to goods aptly capture by
another principle of distributive justice. While Brighouse and Swift claim that parenting is
valuable for flourishing, it does not reduce to the value of flourishing for the purposes of
evaluating child-rearing arrangements. Brighouse and Swift make the unique or non20
See MacLeod, Colin M. "Conceptions of parental autonomy." Politics & Society 25.1 (1997): 117-140: 119 and
121 respectively for, Parents “are also people for whom creating a family is a project from which they may derive
substantial value. They have an interest in the family as a vehicle through which some of their own distinctive
commitments and convictions can be realized and perpetuated” and “One of the projects that many adults greatly
prize is creating a family. As a corollary of their interest in pursuing their own conception of the good, parents have
an interest in including their children in some or all of the elements that constitute their conception of the good”.
See Clayton, M. Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing, (Oxford University Press: 2006): 54-68: 60 for “the interest in
parenting is a particular instantiation of the interest each of us has in maintaining an intimate relationship with
particular dependent others.”
21
It is possible that gestation could be the reason for explaining the asymmetry. If, for there to be any children at
all, they must be gestated by someone and if gestation gives someone a powerful claim to rear that child, then this
would explain the No-Parents Worry. But as we have seen the argument from gestation is not compelling on
reflection and even if it did it would be in tension with a general interest in parenting, which it seems is plausible
and gives rise to a concern of equality of opportunity capable of blocking the relevance of this interest. In other
words, even if gestation was morally relevant, we would need a further argument for thinking it was more
powerful than the interest in being a parent that can be possessed by anyone who is willing and able to be a good
parent.
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substitutability claim and there are important reasons why they must do this, or something
similar, to explain the No-Parents Worry. However, this is not unique to them. In order to
explain the No-Parents Worry, one has to insist that it is not fully reducible to other
opportunities for flourishing. If it were then we could readily compensate those parents who
miss out on parenting due to the alternative arrangement. Moreover, it would, in all but the
most dire circumstances be straightforwardly unable to trump equality of opportunity gains for
children that could be achieved by institutional child-rearing arrangements or reshuffling in the
case of the No-Parents Worry. The need for non-reducibility comes from the need to avoid
parenting falling into a more general theory of equality of opportunity for welfare.
2.2 Gives Rise to Equality of Opportunity
Consider now that these same criteria when possessed by some interest or good give rise to
norms of equal opportunity. So, for instance, it is widely held that equality of opportunity
should apply to educational opportunities or occupational opportunities, others apply it more
generally to the currency of justice, as in the case of proponents of the equality of opportunity
for welfare. Since, in order to explain the No Parents Worry, parenting must be a good that is
relevant to justice and cannot simply be reduced to a more general principle of equality of
opportunity for welfare, for instance, this suggests that other principles could not capture our
concern with it but that some principle should.
However, we should consider whether the interest meets a further condition that is
usually thought to be required for equality of opportunity to apply: scarcity. Scarcity is often
considered important for equality of opportunity because if there were no scarcity then
everyone could have equality of outcome. So, the reason why we think places at elite colleges,
or positions of authority should be available on terms akin to equality of opportunity, is
because we know that there are not enough to go around, at least consistent with other values.
Where equality of outcome is not possible or desirable because it involves objectionable
levelling down, as in the case where no one gets to parent in the No-Parents Worry, it is
thought that some fair principle for determining the winners and losers is required and equality
of opportunity has long been used for that purpose. If there were no scarcity, and everyone
could simultaneously enjoy the good, then we should aim for equality of outcome, or at least
an outcome where no one misses out on parenting.
In what sense are parenting opportunities scarce? Although children who need parents
are not scarce in all jurisdictions, parenting children who are new born is mostly restricted to
fertile parents. Currently, not all adults who want to have children, and would make good
parents, have children. Only when birth parents give up their rights or neglect their children are
other parents given an opportunity to parent. So, not all of those who both would be good
parents want to be have an equal opportunity to parent. Since later adoption comes at a
greater, though by no means insurmountable, risk of not forming the sort of bond that explains
the value of parenting, and since adoptive parents face many obstacles other parents do not in
becoming custodial parents, the adults who cannot reproduce their own children, currently
have an opportunity that is of much worse quality than others. Given that these opportunities
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to parent are valued because they are an opportunity to have a quality relationship with a child,
and these quality opportunities are genuinely scarce, and since they cannot be reduced to
other deeper values and are justice salient, we ought to give those who have an interest in this
good, those who are competent and willing to become parents equal opportunity. We should
ensure, then, that factors arbitrary to the enjoyment of that good, such as race, sexual
orientation and infertility, do not stand as obstacles to enjoying the goods of rearing children
more or less from birth. These factors should influence allocation only when indirectly related
to relevant factors such as competence. 22
3.3 Equality of Opportunity Blocks Explanation of the Worries
To see how this kind of interest can, together with a concern for the equal opportunity to
parent, block explanation of the other worries, consider the following. The Reshuffle Worry
focuses on the idea that birth parents should have rights over their birth children. If parenting
makes a large contribution in terms of well-being to those who have that ambition and would
be at least minimally good, we would not expect this to be especially true of birth parents as
opposed to others. Importantly, we would not expect this to be true of fertile parents rather
than infertile parents. Adoptive infertile couples seem equally capable of flourishing from the
relationship. The Better Parents Worry focuses on the idea that those parents who currently
have custodial rights over some child should retain them. If parenting is a justice-salient,
irreducible, good, as it must be to explain the No-Parents Worry, then we could not expect this
to be especially true of current parents as opposed to prospective parents, at least where the
child is young enough to form a valuable relation with new parents.
If the parental interest that explains the No-Parents worry is possessed by all would-be
parents who will do a good job, then opportunities should be made available on a basis that is
fair to all, including those who have difficulty or simply cannot conceive of their own children.
Currently those who cannot conceive their own biological children do not enjoy opportunities
to parent on a par with those who are fertile. They face important obstacles to parenting that
others do not face.
Taking the importance of being parents seriously leads us to equality of opportunity in
parenting, which would tell against privileging birth parents. The flourishing contribution of
parenting could not explain the Better Parents Worry and, indeed, it may be a double blow
against our convictions in cases where infertile parents would make better parents since there
is no reason to think that the importance of parenting to current parents is greater than it is to
prospective but infertile parents. In needing to pick out something like biology, the explanation
of these worries privileges those who can reproduce their own children over those who cannot.
If parenting children is a valuable activity, as we must insist to explain the No-Parents Worry,
22
If some seemingly arbitrary factors, such as age or disability, were indirectly related to relevant factors, such as
competence, then we could allow their significance, but this would be explained by their relation to relevant
factors and not by themselves.
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then it is at least partly for reasons other than biology and opportunities to parent should be
distributed fairly. Fairness in the distribution of opportunities to parent is therefore in tension
with explanation of the Better Parents and Reshuffling Worries.
For these reasons, then, it seems the dual-interest account can explain one intuition
only at the expense of the other two. Someone who held the dual-interest view for the reason
that it promised to explain the Better-Parents and Reshuffling Worries may decide that the
view is not for them, but it also opens up the important debate about what equal opportunity
for the goods of parenting is for those who are most motivated by the No-Parents Worry. Like
equality of opportunity for jobs, it would likely take into account both willingness (occupational
choice) and competency (child’s welfare). Is equality of opportunity for parenting meaningfully
distinct from occupational equality of opportunity? It would seem that equality of opportunity
for parenting is a demand that applies to the possible benefits to parents of parenting and that
it would not acknowledge infertility as a relevant obstacle to parenting. Considerations about
the child’s well-being, however, might. Think, for instance, of meritocratic criteria used for job
allocation. At the very least competency seems like a relevant factor in allocating parenting
roles, whereas biology isn’t because it doesn’t affect one’s interest in the role. This means that
to explain the No-Parents Worry we must accept that there is an interest in parenting that gives
rise to equality of opportunity to pursue that interest and since that interest is possessed by the
fertile and infertile, the current and prospective, parents, it renders irrelevant any interest that
could give extra weight or current or biological parents. There are also important questions
about whether to include those who are infertile only with their current partners, but could
procreate with others and people who simply do not want to go through any of the physical
steps generally associated with creating and bearing a child. I cannot answer these questions
here. I mention them to note that this is where the argument takes us.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have considered a number of ways of explaining some convictions about the
justice of child-rearing arrangements. I began by considering Brighouse and Swift’s account of
how parenting contributes to flourishing. I showed that that view could only help us to explain
the No-Parents Worry. I then examined Anca Gheaus’ claim that gestation and biology can help
explain the Reshuffle and Better Parents Worries. I showed that this view couldn’t easily explain
either of these worries without holding onto a very strong claim about the significance of
gestation. An interim conclusion was that dual-interest views struggle to explain the Worries
that motivate the position.
I then went on to consider the type of interest or interests that could possibly explain all
three of the worries. I argued that explaining the No-Parents Worry requires an interest all
parents can have, regardless of their fertility or biological relation to the child, and that it is the
sort of interest that gives rise to claims of equality of opportunity amongst willing and able
prospective parents. I argued that any valuable opportunity that is justice-salient and not
reducible to other opportunities calls out for a principle of fair distribution. Since in order to
explain the No-Parents Worry one must posit an interest of this sort, anyone hoping to explain
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it is committed to equality of opportunity and this will block explanation of the other two
worries since they rely on references to biology or gestation, which are not relevant to equality
of opportunity. As such equality of opportunity, entailed by explaining the No-Parents Worry by
appeal to the parental interest, is incompatible with the privileging of biology, current parents
or fertility, that are necessary to explain the Better-Parents and Reshuffling Worries.
It is possible to draw a number of conclusions from this but it is worthwhile considering
a defense of the dual-interest view consistent with my arguments. One could claim that the
dual-interest theorist has succeeded in explaining at least one worry that the child-centered
view cannot, and that is sufficient to defend the importance of being parents as being relevant
to the evaluation of child-rearing arrangements. It should be noted that child-centered views
are much better positioned to explain what is worrying about institutional child-care regimes
than they are positioned to explain the other two worries. This is because it is widely held that
small family-like groups are thought necessary, or highly conducive relative to institutions for
cultivating certain traits that are highly valuable for reasons to do with the child’s welfare or
society as a whole, including love and trust. As such, explaining the No-Parents Worry in the
very limited way it does is not really a victory for those who are concerned about the
importance of being parents and it is not really a victory, certainly not a decisive one, for the
dual-interest accounts over the child-centered accounts of the interests relevant to the
evaluation of child-rearing arrangements.
The connection I have made is as follows. If a parental interest is to explain the NoParents Worry, then this gives rise to concerns about equality of opportunity that block
explanation of the Reshuffling and Better Parents Worries. With this said, we could consider the
avenues that remain open.
1) One could reject the dual-interest view and accept the worries as they apply to the
child-centered view, including the Better Parents Worry.
2) One could accept a dual-interest view and accept some characterization of the
interest in being parents that explains the No-Parents Worry, work on developing a
plausible account of equality of opportunity to parent, and come to terms with the
Reshuffling and Better-Parents Worries. Alternatively, one could come to terms with
the No-Parents Worry and work on devising an interest that can explain the
Reshuffling and Better-Parents Worries.
3) One could just attach some defeasible weight to the interests of parents, that is
reducible to other concerns, and accept that whether we should accept the
apparently worrying implications depends on a certain balance of the interests and
that a more robust explanation of the worries is not available.
4) Finally, we should note that the equality of opportunity norm arises most strongly in
cases where there is an under-supply of the good, while the forced or even
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incentivized procreation of more children may be deeply objectionable for reasons
of procreative liberty reproductive technologies could be utilized as a way of
resolving the issue and allowing gestational parents to keep their children, because
the relationship does seem to have some weight, while at the same time treating
those who cannot reproduce their own children without reproductive technology
fairly.23
23
E. Mc Ternan, Should Fertility Treatment be State Funded?, Journal of Applied Philosophy, forthcoming; De
Wispelaere, Jurgen, and Daniel Weinstock. "Balancing the Interests of Parents and Children." Family-Making:
Contemporary Ethical Challenges(2014): 131.
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